One Photo Sums Up The Most Stressful Part of Modern Dating

Since technology has given us the ability to send and receive
messages instantly, we assume that the object of our affections saw our "Hey!
We still on for dinner tonight? :)"
moments after we hit "send." Facebook and WhatsApp even tell us
exactly when a message is seen, which makes it all the more maddening when
we don't get a response.

The anxiety caused by read receipts captures a stressful new
reality: The immediate gratification of modern technology is causing an increased
anxiety in dating.

Dating has always
involved overthinking, but technology makes it worse. Sure, some of us are
naturally prone to worrying
ourselves sick over every social interaction. And communication in dating has always triggered those obsessive thoughts: Consider the classic image of the girl anxiously waiting by the phone after a date.

But with virtual communication, the impact of that overthinking tendency
becomes even more acute. Even seeing those "typing awareness indicators" — the three dots
that appear when your texting partner is composing their response — can
be anxiety-inducing.

"Whenever someone doesn't text me back, I'm
going to be thinking, 'Oh my gosh, what did I say wrong?' or 'What did I
do this time?' or even 'Am I that bad at making conversation?'" Connor, 18, from
British Columbia, told Mic. "I think
to myself, 'Oh, maybe they're working,' 'Maybe they're at dinner,' or even 'They're
in the middle of skydiving,' just to ease the nerves."

Even receiving a vague, one-word response can
cause racing thoughts: "Are they just not wanting to talk to me?" Connor
admitted to worrying.

Abby, 20, from Springfield, Illinois, told Mic that she once deleted a guy's phone
number after he uncharacteristically stopped responding to her texts. "In fact,
he had just lost his phone," she said. "I spent a whole day freaking out
because I thought our conversations were going so well."

Emojis just don't
tell us enough. Without face-to-face contact, we don't have the
cues we need to determine whether that last "LOL" was meant as a
joke or a diss.

"Because we are viewing communication in written form, it
gives us more of a chance to ponder possible hidden meanings," Susan Krauss
Whitbourne, psychology professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst,
told Mic.

That's especially problematic when the messages
are banally simple. "You engage in a bunch of nonsense-texting, trying to
schedule and make plans. People overanalyze these tiny messages and go crazy,"
Aziz Ansari griped
to AV Club.

The absence
of vital visual and aural cues can amplify our insecurities. "If
you're feeling really confident about a relationship you have with another
person, you will assume the best," Kim Schneiderman, a licensed clinical social
worker from New York, told Mic. "If
you're feeling insecure about the relationship you're more likely to think,
'They didn't like me' or 'They're avoiding me.'"

That
influences how you respond to that person, or what you do about their silence. "There's the
concern of, 'Oh my god, they didn't reply. ... Should I resend? But I don't want
to look too desperate!'" Christina,
21, from Orange County, California, told Mic.

All this overthinking
is bad for our health. The self-doubt unleashed by an unanswered call or
text is bad news, Rebecca Gladding explained
in Psychology Today, because buying into your own negative thoughts can cause you
to "berate and dislike" yourself.

This can have real physical and emotional effects. When researchers from Ohio State
University asked
participants to ruminate on a stressful event, they discovered that levels
of inflammation in the body actually rose in response to the negative
thoughts.

In fact, a 2013 study of 32,827 individuals
by the BBC's Lab UK and the University of Liverpool discovered that people who
didn't ruminate or blame themselves for their difficulties showed lower levels
of depression and anxiety, even if they'd experienced many negative events in
their lives.

And while brooding isn't unique to the digital age, our
constant conversations only provide more opportunities to feel misunderstood or
ignored, and then blame ourselves.

Get a grip, everyone. There are endless reasons someone
might not respond to a message, or respond ambiguously. Without knowing, it's too easy to meditate on every
possible explanation. "When you don't
know," Schneiderman said, "your mind tries to fill in the space."

If you're
overthinking things, the only surefire way to clear the air is to speak up. "People
aren't fully expressing themselves [online], and the more you give someone an
opportunity to fully express themselves, the more you can understand what they
really mean," Schneiderman advised.

That might mean
triggering an awkward talk. But anyone who's ever been a part of a lazy three-week
texting conversation with a Tinder match (or been utterly ghosted) knows it's worth calling something what it is — especially if it turns out you were getting stressed over nothing.

Erin Migdol is a freelance writer for Mic. Her writing has been featured on LAStageTimes.com, FabFitFun.com and the Huffington Post, and she is currently an assistant editor at Inside Weddings magazine. She is a UC Davis alum and resides in Los Angeles.